Ryan Switzer is a PhD candidate in sociology at Stockholm University. He researches right-wing politics in welfare states.
Donald Trump’s plan to suspend the collection of the payroll tax risks both the financial well-being of workers and Social Security. Instead of outsourcing the case against Trump to Republican opponents of Social Security in the Lincoln Project, Democrats need to stand up for popular social programs.
Ellen DeGeneres’s reputation as the kindest celebrity in America has finally been shattered. But it’s not just her “mean streak” that’s the problem — it’s that she’s an exploitative boss, who cheated her employees at the height of the pandemic.
Reopening schools right now is extremely dangerous — which is why many colleges and universities are lobbying in Washington for immunity from COVID-related lawsuits.
As the political center has withered in recent years, self-described moderates have often expressed nostalgia for the “normal” politics of the 1990s. But the era of Blair and Clinton really wasn’t a golden age of progress — and it brought a wave of market fundamentalism still sowing havoc today.
Joe Biden may indeed win in November. But he has run an inconsequential and pathetic campaign — one that could pose enormous dangers in the coming years.
On this Labor Day, remind everyone you can that if we hope to ever rebuild an economy that works for everyone, we’re going to need many more workers in unions and a much stronger labor movement.
David Graeber will remain for me a model for how to live to the fullest a scholarly and activist life.
We’ve got some bad news for you on Labor Day: your boss is exploiting you. Karl Marx explains how.
When managers at a major retail warehouse in Melbourne concealed information on the spread of COVID-19 among the workforce, casual and permanent workers united to walk off the job. The result was a powerful victory in the fight against unsafe conditions.
Because socialists were marginalized for decades, we’ve had to build a new left almost from scratch. It’s understandable to feel demoralized by defeats. But the movement we’re building is one that can still win real change.
Simply put, Jessica Krug was a minstrel act, a racist caricature. But while Krug’s persona was certainly offensive, what’s far more offensive is that there is a demand for this kind of performance in liberal academic circles.
Joe Biden is trying to use Martin Luther King’s legacy to make the case for a law-and-order crackdown on protests. But King drew a distinction between violence against people and violence against property — and he viewed riots as the product of an unjust social order.
The negotiations over a European Union bailout were riven with splits on whether “frugal” Northern states should have to assist their coronavirus-hit Southern partners. But while the eventual €750 billion deal was widely hailed as a victory for European solidarity, its details show that it will aggravate the EU’s inequalities even further.
At the Spotless Laundry in Melbourne’s southeast, employers demanded that work continue despite escalating numbers of COVID-19 cases. The workers refused to allow the company’s profit to be placed above their safety — and won.
David Graeber’s intellectual legacy is enormous and wide-ranging, but his recent writings on antisemitism deeply moved me. He knew that antisemitism was far from dead — and he also knew that only a democratic left could stop it.
For four decades Sen. Ed Markey was a run-of-the-mill liberal Democrat. But when he found himself threatened by a potentially career-ending defeat, he turned toward young voters and the Left — and it worked. Could Biden do the same? Maybe. But he probably won’t even try.
Radical sociologist Oliver Cromwell Cox argued that racial antagonism was an essential tool for maintaining capitalist power. Cox’s understanding of race and class can help us forge a broad, multiracial movement against oppression today.
The day after the Bolivian election, the Organization of American States suggested the result was fraudulent — then took months to provide any proof. Last month, it finally released its data — and researchers at the Center for Economic and Policy Research found a basic coding error that destroys the OAS’s case against Morales.
In the face of climate crisis and police killings, thinking about American federalism can seem terribly boring. But the fragmentation of the US state and the dilution of popular power are at the root of many of our most pressing problems — and we desperately need fundamental changes to the country’s constitutional order.
In AMC’s comedic drama series Lodge 49, webs of debt and despair, disappointed dreams, and displaced lives tie the characters together at first. But it’s solidarity that makes the bonds last.